Earth is Heaven

"You're mine! You're mine, Earl-remember that!"

"I won't forget."

"I'd kill any other woman you looked at!"

"Easy," he said. "We don't need to fight." And then, to lighten the moment, "You should try to be more civilized."

"Like Eunice? You want her?"

"No. She belongs to Urich." The fruit of his victory over the angel. "Now they can be really close."

"A happy ending," said Ysa

"Marry, you mean?"

"Why not? You're home now and you need a woman to stand beside you."

Dumarest said, "I never thought you'd want to settle down."

"I didn't. Not at first. Now things are different. You've found what you were looking for and have no reason to keep traveling. This could be our world. Ours and our children's. Earl?"

"There are things to be settled first."

"What? The Ypsheim? Let them rot. They aren't your responsibility and we have ourselves to look after. There must be more ruins to the north. Treasure, palaces, gems-damn it, the legends can't all be lies. Even allowing for exaggeration there must be a fortune waiting to be collected. The biggest damned fortune ever known. And it's ours, darling. All ours!"

A thought which triggered her desire and drove her against him, lips seeking, hands searching, body a sudden vibrant flame.

Then the intercom sounded its demand for attention.

"Earl?" Batrun's voice was strained. "I've spotted something odd. You'd better get up here."

The control room was alive with winks and glimmers, flashes and flickers from the blips on the screens. It was early dawn, the direct vision ports filled with a nacreous luminescence which barely illuminated the settlement.

"Angels." Batrun gestured at the screen. "They've been wheeling all night. No sign of an attack, though."

"So why sound the alarm?" Ysa

Dumarest, more patient, said, "What did you spot, Andre?"

"Something. You'll see it in-" He checked the chronometer, "-thirteen seconds." Time for him to take a pinch of snuff. As the lid of the box closed with a snap he said, "There!"

A mote traversing a screen. One limned with a scintillant haze. They all knew what it had to be.

"A ship!" Ysa

"Fight?" Dumarest shook his head. "What would we be fighting for? Some dirt? Hills? Ruins?"

"Our dirt, Earl!" Anger quivered her voice. "Our hills! Our ruins! I don't care if all we've got is a heap of garbage-no bastard's going to take it! What we have we keep!"

Their lives-the only thing of real value. To the captain Dumarest said, "Prepare the ship for immediate flight."

"It's being done, Earl. I alerted Talion before you got here."

"Good. Have Sheiner give him a hand." On the screen the mote slowed, began to grow in size. "Tell them to hurry."

"Run?" Ysa

"What else do you suggest?" Dumarest was savage in his interruption. "Arm the Ypsheim and hope they'll take our orders? Kill for us? Die for us? Use your brains, girl-once they get guns we'll be their first target. Andre?"

Batrun studied the screen, read the message of his instruments. "They've checked orbit and are coming in to land. They'll be here soon."

And trouble would come with them. Dumarest stared at the mote, feeling the old, familiar tension which warned of danger. The stranger could be anyone; a slaver, a trader, a vessel on an exploratory voyage, but he sensed what it would be.

A ship of the Cyclan. Following him-but how?

"Make contact," said Ysa

"No." Dumarest was firm. "Maintain silence." To ignore an i

Sheiner answered. "Not long now. A couple of minutes will do it."

Time they didn't have.

The strange vessel landed with a crack of displaced air; thunder which scattered the wheeling angels and filled the air with transient dust. The shimmer of the Erhaft field collapsed to reveal the shape and bulk of the vessel, one of unfamiliar design, but there was nothing strange about the sigil it bore, the snouts of laser-ca

"The Cyclan! They'll burn us from the sky if we try to leave!" Ysa

It was a problem which held an enticing complexity, one Avro pondered as, around him, the ship came to quiescent rest, enhancing the mental euphoria attending the proof of a calculated prediction. And yet even while he relished the success he was aware of possible complications which could render it void.

The ship was before him, the Erce-but was Dumarest with it?

Logic told him that vessel and man had traveled together and yet the possibility they had parted remained. It was a low order of probability and yet no detail, no matter how small, could be ignored, and if Dumarest was with the Erce was he inside it? And if he was…

"Master!" Weitz bowed as he came to make his report. Though young, the acolyte had the face of an old man; the voyage had been wearing to those denied the use of the amniotic tanks. "Sca

U

He said, "What is the present situation of the crew?"

"The Erce's? I-"

"You are relieved." Avro's even modulation didn't change but the acolyte cringed as if he had been struck. "Report to the captain for menial duties. Send Amrik to me."

Another acolyte, but one who had ridden in an amniotic tank as had Avro himself and a few others. A precaution against the unknown and one proved justified.

"Master!" The bow was a matter of ceremony, a mere inclination of the head. "Sixty percent of the crew has been incapacitated by the journey. Premature aging caused by the stress of the cascade-field together with an attendant loss of mental faculties."

The price paid for gaining velocity against which the speed of a normal ship was small. One predicted and accepted; the risk had been unavoidable. But it added another dimension to the main problem.

"Sca

"High." Avro gestured with one thin hand. "Any individual sources noted?"

"None beyond the areas specified."

Which meant that if anyone was absent from the Erce they must be within the settlement or beyond the horizon. It was barely past dawn. On a strange and possibly hostile world it would be natural to stay within safe confines. If Dumarest had stayed with the ship he would now be in it or with those in the settlement. The latter probability was low but still high enough to be a factor of importance. One easily checked.

"Dumarest?" Ulls Farnham scowled as he looked at the cyber. To him Avro meant little, but he had come in a vessel and was obviously of importance. "Is he a friend of yours?"